A group of Surrey (B.C.) students were recently the winners of a QUEST—Quality Urban Energy Systems of Tomorrow—award for energy ingenuity.Not surprising, a local Surrey newspaper scooped up the story and added much platitudinous political talk about utilizing the cleanest of renewable sources of energy, all the while solar energy—the cleanest, most potent and least finite—has essentially been wasted. This fact is especially so when considering, as but the best example, the vast and empty desert regions planet-wide upon which countless state-of-the-art-tech solar panels could absorb so very much solar energy.The best example of such collective head-in-sand mentality is that of the virtual-monopoly vehicular propulsion energy—i.e. fossil-fuel mass extraction, consumption and pollution.As a teenager during the 1980s, I swallowed one convenient excuse for suppressing a grand-scale transition to the mass production of electric cars, the argument being that it’s too inefficient because its 0-60 mph pull-away power and torque capability is incompatible to the petroleum-powered car.Well, some things have changed since then.Current electric car technology has it making the 0-60 run in better time than that of a fossil-fuel powered car of the same weight plus aerodynamic and tire quality. From my understanding of it, the electric car’s power cell has all of the energy that’s required for the sprint from 0-60 right there and then, instantly available and implemented. The petroleum car, however, will always require those extra couple seconds or fractions thereof to procure from its fossil-fuel propelled engine the eventually readied power to reach 60 mph.As for the many other non-vehicular dependents of crude oil extraction, such as the containers in which automobile lubricants are packaged, presuming there’s a considerable increase in cost-per-unit production due to greatly lowered demand for crude-oil-based fuels, such container-production interests would have to be flatly denied any manner of veto power over such a progressive, profound transition to solar energy dependence.

One thing overlooked is the expense and waste of long transmission lines from the "desert regions". The very best is for each building to have its own no-emissions independent power system. The only grids should be small and for community or area power from a larger no emissions source, such as wind farm, modular Gen IVs, tidal, micro hydro, and wave, or solar farm on worthless land nearby or everyone's roof in a small grid tie solar.If any of that power is not available then people shouldn't even live there. Like England with lousy solar and about 8 times the sustainable number of people that the island can sustain long term. Of course, that is globally common.I was stationed in cloudy Germany and wonder how they can afford such inefficiency with a bunch of solar at 1/4 my power input, in the sunbelt edge of the SW USA.Then I hear that the breeding rate of moslems in England is 8(a doubling time of the millions of around 7 years), and basically Europeans are allowing a muslim caliphate to form without war. They are a kill cult of very little care about the environment. It is a good thing that type will go extinct with the rest.It is too bad the crash and thermageddon also take out the intelligent, strong, moral, sustainably living humans, who, unfortunately are the small minority of the widely disparate species.

_________________"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

_________________"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

I agree. However, would it not be a bit easier for governments to enforce upon government-owned vast desert regions vast arrays of solar panels than it would be to enforce upon via legislation individual, privately-owned lots or apartment complexes, etcetera.

Much of that "empty desert land" has vibrant eco-systems. There is the power loss in transmission and the materials use of long transmission lines. Deserts are high heat lending less efficiency but worse is sandstorms grinding at the panels and the up lift is very strong, so substantial structures would have to be added to the natural landscape. More money and waste, and it still would not be nearly enough to replace the coal plants. Gen IV would, but we only have 9 years to reduce emissions from all human sources 90%.Can we go to that kind of steady state environmental economy, needed also?Logistics alone says humans will do too little too late, but psychology has the same result.How do you get 7.2 billion people to do the right things? It is equivalent to herding cats.Time is the thing that is running out very fast, as overpopulation and emissions continue to grow.The Juggernaut

_________________"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

I wonder if people in favour of basically unhindered resource-extraction ever thoroughly consider what good is creating jobs when the planet is deathly polluted thus people are getting sick and dying because of mass industrial and vehicular pollution?When I see people all excited and partying it up following the reelections of ultra-pro-Big-Industry governing political parties, I usually think of Midnight Oil’s 1988 hit song, “Beds Are Burning”: “How can we dance when the earth is burning?/How can we sleep when our beds are burning?”